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Monday, October 13, 2008 10:39 AM Haunted house to take over old furniture store By Janelle Clevinger | Times Staff Writer I know it's not my imagination that the holidays we celebrate seem to be running into each other these days. Christmas decorations show up in retail stores in October. Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day flags jockey for position on our front porches. It won't be long before Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny duke it out in my living room. Fur and cookies will be flying! So before we start concentrating on Christmas and barely notice Thanksgiving, let's turn our attention to Halloween and an event that will entertain area thrill-seekers and donate its proceeds to a wonderful cause. The Wilson Police Department's haunted house will scare the living daylights out of the public for the fifth consecutive year at a new location this year. The former Furniture Liquidator building at 925 Ward Blvd. will house room after room of spooky fun from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31. "It's a big building, and we're going to fill every inch of it," said Officer B.C. Wood, the gentleman who has been at the helm of the police department's haunted house since its inception. "We walked around the building for the first time last week and we made up what we wanted to include in the haunted house right there on the spot," he said. Wood is a big horror movie buff, and that's where he gets his inspiration. He's promising a gory maze and a very spooky graveyard as just two of the many elements in this haunted house. "We've had to carry out a few people out of the haunted house in the past," said Wood. "They just couldn't get through the whole thing." As they have done every year so far, the police department will donate this year's proceeds from the haunted house to a charity. Last year, the police department gave the earnings to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This year's recipient will be the BB&T Noah's Arc Playground, the largest certified boundless playground in the state of North Carolina. The playground, which is built so that children with physical disabilities could play alongside others without disabilities, still has features being added to it and is in the process of being landscaped. All of those things take money -- a lot of it -- and the donations from the police department's haunted house will go a long way to see that those tasks are completed. Although the police department hosts the haunted house, it gets plenty of community support in the building and running of this event. "Our building supplies are donated, and The Playhouse of Wilson generously allows us to borrow some of their props," said Wood. "The Hunt High School ROTC helps us out, as well as kids from the other high schools, our spouses and lots of folks from Barton College." Wood added that the Barton baseball coach has his entire baseball team come out to help each year. Admission to the haunted house is $8. Children under 7 are admitted free and can visit the special children's section, where they will enjoy their own kid-themed area and even watch a movie. Parents can leave their kids in this children's section and then visit the grown-up part of the haunted house if they so desire. I'm pretty sure the kids will be safe with police officers as baby-sitters! When I asked Officer Wood how long it would take to go from one end of the haunted house to the other, he said between 20 and 30 minutes. How long would it take me? It would take about 30 seconds as I run screaming from beginning to end, a blur of pasty white skin and Nike running shoes. ON THE MAP runs on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. If you have a story that you want to share, e-mail jclevinger@wilsontimes.com or call 265-7811. If you have an event that you would like to enter on our community calendar, go to www.wilsontimes.com and click on the link for submitting information to the calendar. |
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